For more than two years, David and Lindsay Lepinsky bid over asking price, waived contingencies and stretched their budget in central New Jersey’s brutally competitive housing market. Still, their offers kept getting passed over as homes sold for tens – and sometimes hundreds – of thousands of dollars above list price.
“It really gets you down when you put offers $100,000 over asking and you get blown out of the water,” David Lepinsky told CNN.
David, 36, and Lindsay, 34, were set on finding a home in the area before they started a family, but they were shopping in one of the country’s strongest seller’s markets, where demand far outpaces the number of homes for sale and buyers are forced to compete fiercely for limited inventory.
Five years ago, much of the country looked like the market the Lepinskys encountered in New Jersey. Rock-bottom mortgage rates and a pandemic-era rush for more space fueled a nationwide homebuying frenzy. Today, the housing market has become far more divided: In some parts of the country, sellers still hold all the power. In others, buyers are finally gaining leverage.
“Nationally, we’re in a seller’s market, but we’re moving out of it,” said Brad Case, chief economist at Homes.com. “The process is further along in some areas and not very far along in others.”
